446
Opinion of the Court
difference, each of the two districts would have been closer to ideal size than the single congressional district.
The State of Montana, its Governor, Attorney General, and Secretary of State,7 and the State's two Senators and Representatives (hereinafter collectively referred to as Montana) filed suit against appropriate federal defendants (the Government) in the United States District Court for the District of Montana, asserting that Montana was entitled to retain its two seats. They alleged that the existing apportionment method violates Article I, § 2, of the Constitution because it "does not achieve the greatest possible equality in the number of individuals per representative" 8 and also violates Article I, § 2, and Article I, § 7, because reapportionment is effected "through application of a mathematical formula by the Department of Commerce and the automatic transmittal of the results to the states" 9 rather than by legislation on which Members of Congress vote in the normal manner. A three-judge District Court, convened pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 2284, granted Montana's motion for summary judgment on the first claim.10
The majority of the three-judge District Court decided that the principle of equal representation for equal numbers of people that was applied to intrastate districting in Wesberry v. Sanders, 376 U. S. 1 (1964), should also be applied to the apportionment of seats among the States. Under that standard the only population variances that are acceptable are those that "are unavoidable despite a good-faith effort to achieve absolute equality, or for which justification is shown," Kirkpatrick v. Preisler, 394 U. S. 526, 531 (1969). The District Court held that the variance between
7 The three state officials brought suit on behalf of all voters in Montana.
8 Complaint ¶ 19.
9 Id., ¶¶ 28-29.
10 Having granted summary judgment on the first claim, the District Court found it unnecessary to reach the merits of the claim relating to the automatic method of apportionment. 775 F. Supp., at 1366.
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